


Words

by JessaLRynn



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Episode Related, F/M, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-20 20:50:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6024385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JessaLRynn/pseuds/JessaLRynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someday you'll remember them, Gwyneth's words over the washbasin in the back of her scullery, and you'll remember them as what they are, a story from your future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Words

**Author's Note:**

> From a Then_Theres_Us ficathon (Challenge 86)

Someday you'll remember them, Gwyneth's words over the washbasin in the back of her scullery, and you'll remember them as what they are, a story from your future. You'll be standing with Mickey, then, staring out over a beach that no one can get you to leave, wondering how it could all come to just this, and what you're to do when forever has ended too soon. You'll think on how he jumped a Universe to come and find you, and how you can't believe any more that anyone would ever come so far just for you. That's when you'll remember them.

But for now, they're just a ghost story, a scary tale for a haunted night. You thought it was Christmas, but it's actually Hallowe'en, with a creepy house and a girl who talks in riddles, and you've already been a hairsbreadth from being the dead blonde in the second scene. The Doctor's there, though, your Doctor, and together with your compassion for Gwyneth, they take away any fear you might find in strange words. 

This, of course, is also the night you learn that every word has weight, has meaning. Tonight, he'll say words that are completely true, words that elate and horrify you, that he can change time, that time can change even without him if it wants to do. You will think it's the most important thing you've ever heard, but for only a few minutes, before your knowledge expands yet again. 

You'll realize in that cold and horrifying cellar that every word is important, and that you're not the only one who can disguise all the important words in words you don't say. You've already done that, said, "I want chips", when what you meant was, "I want everything you'll give me, and that scares me to death."

Before the night is over, the Doctor will do the very same thing, and it will awe and terrify you, and you won't be able to deny it, not at first. He'll say, "I'm so glad I met you," and what his eyes will say is, "I love you." You'll say, "Me, too." You'll be talking to what he doesn't say, really. You're going to die here, but you're hardly some Shakespearean tragedy to go down with romantic last words. He's not either, all leather and grief, and you'll just be preparing yourself to fight for him with your very last breath, because you know now that that's what he'll do for you. Neither one of you will say it, though, because you understand each other; you're already coming to speak the language of the words between the lines.

Later, so much later, you'll learn, or realize, that the reason he doesn't say the words is that, no matter how much he means them, the world can't afford for him to back them up. Tonight, however, and for uncountable nights to come, it will be enough for you, to know that his eyes speak where his lips won't, and in return, your smiles will speak where your voice won't. 

It will never be, until you do speak those words at last and he's cut away from you with your name on his lips (and this is the second time just that you know about). That's when you'll remember the most important words, spoken or unspoken from that night. You'll be alone at last on that beach that whimsy named for you, and it will come to you, like a dream washing up on the shore.

"And you," she's saying, "you've flown so far, farther than anyone."

And you won't have done, not yet, you realize, because Mickey's been here and back again, and that is the same as you, not less. 

"The things you've seen. The Darkness. The Big Bad Wolf."

And there you'll be, days and months and maybe ages from this point, the Bad Wolf on the Bad Wolf Bay, watching the Darkness as it comes down, comes for you. And you'll realize that what Gwyneth has seen is your future, in a way even the Doctor could not. She saw you for yourself. She saw the Bad Wolf coming to you, and the Darkness roiling into your night sky. You'll hope, there, with all your heart, that she is right about the rest of it, and that you alone can fly farther than anyone, see things no one has seen, and through all that, come back to him.

For tonight, though, he is blue-eyed and beautiful and he loves you. You love him back, and can no longer imagine not loving him. No one needs to say one word about it.


End file.
